Waiting for agretti
21.08.2023 - 12:05
/ theunconventionalgardener.com
/ Emma Doughty
One of the new things I am trying to grow this year is agretti, Salsola soda. It’s a big hit with chefs, but still new on the UK food scene and virtually untried in British gardens.
My early (indoor) sowings came to nothing – well, I did achieve one seedling, which I potted up earlier in the month. I’ve lost track of it since, so I need to go and find it and see how it’s doing…. At the time I wasn’t convinced it was healthy, because it looked as though the base of the stem was rotting, so it maybe that it has since died.
Prior to that, on Sunday 22nd May (I kept records, yay!), I sowed some more seed. I had soaked some in water, and sowed those in a trough with some un-soaked seeds to see if it made a difference to germination. I sowed some direct (and thickly) into the end of my asparagus bed.
Then I waited.
And waited.
And gave up.
It wasn’t until last weekend, when Ryan was fitting guttering to the sheds that I had occasion to take another look. Ryan slipped and put his foot into the asparagus bed, and summoned me to check whether any damage had been done. It hadn’t – he missed the asparagus plants and stepped on the bit I had sown with agretti.
But wait! What’s that?
It’s an agretti seedling. About their only obliging feature is that the seedlings have red stems, so you can spot them as they emerge. But they look dreadful! With that dark and wizened tip they look like the growing tip has died off before it has even got started.
But if you can find one that’s got to the next stage of life, you can see that it’s just an illusion:
New leaves are indeed emerging as the seedling grows.
I have seedlings in the trough now, too. Both the soaked seeds and the unsoaked seeds are germinating, so that doesn’t seem to have much of an effect